[ILUG] Broadband querry

[NW Dublin]

Thomas Bridge wrote:

>On Fri, Mar 05, 2004 at 04:17:29PM +0000, Timothy Murphy wrote:
> 
>  
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>>The difference in price between UTV and Eircom is negligible,
>>and it would take years for the difference to amount to 150 euro.
>>    
>>
>
>And the argument for using Eircom is?   
>
>Thomas
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>  
>
It seems it would take 15 months for the difference to be recovered ... 
as long as you stay under 4G/month. If you do 8G in your first month and 
get charged for it by eircom then you will actually be €4 up already!

Now I don't know if anyone has sent any bandwidth bills yet, but I know 
that I could pull in 30G in a month and face a bill from €936 (eircom 
26G @ €36) down to as little as €430 (esat 14G @ €30) if I am charged 
for the overage by Eircom or Esat! The theoretical maximum you could 
pull in is about 140G and then you could face an overage charge of about 
€5000, wouldn't that be nice :-)

For me the arguments are all about bandwidth allowances, service 
bundling and the price of excess traffic! The bundling of modems and 
their usability would only come into it all other things being equal enough!

EIRCOM

With Eircom for €39.99 you get a 4G/month download and 1G/month upload 
allowance with excess traffic charged at €36/G (yes that's right, in 
fact it's low because it's just 1000 * 3.6c so add another 86.4c). The 
give you a free dsl modem. €99 connection fee. 12 month contract.

For €54.45 you get 8G/month download and umlimited upload and 24:1 
contention with the same excess traffic charge. They give you a free 4 
port modem. €99 connection fee. 12 month contract.

You do not need to have a voice service with Eircom to avail of their 
service.

UTV

With UTV for €29.99 you get a 8G/month download allowance with an 
unknown excess traffic charge, loan of a dsl modem., €99 connection, a 
twelve month contract AND you must use their telephony service or face 
an unknown charge.

For €45 you get 16G/month download and 24:1 contention with unknown 
traffic charges, loan of dsl modem, €99 connection, 12 month contract 
AND you must use their telephony or ...

ESAT

With Esat for €39 you get an 8G limit and then €30/G (ok, €30.72/G), 
48:1, loan of dsl modem, 12 month contract, €90 connection and you can 
save €5.85/month by taking their telephony.

For €47 you get a 16G limit and then €30/G, 24:1, loan of dsl modem, 12 
month contract, €80 connection and you can save another €7.05 by 
bundling their telephony.

NETSOURCE

With netsource for €66.55 you get a fixed IP, domain name, no download 
limit/16G (I say the no download limit on the sales page means the usage 
policy is invalid) and undisclosed overage charges at 48:1 contention, 
no modem, 2 month rolling contract and no telephony implications.

For €119.79 you get a fixed IP, domain name, no download limit/overage, 
24:1 contention, usb modem for €19, 2 month rolling contract and no 
telephony.

Netsource will only bill to business though.

SUMMARY

Eircoms offer looks horrible if you transfer more than 4G/month or 
8G/month respectively. UTV and Netsource both have their complete 
unknowns in there, unless you go to €120/month (that's Eircom's basic 
package doing 2.2G of overage / month, 6.2G/month is not a lot). Esat at 
least have the high caps but their overage charge is horrific aswell.

So you have to ask yourself, how much will I transfer, what calls do I 
make? If you don't make any calls, then if your under 8G UTV are 
cheapest, if your over 8G but under 16G then Esat (who come in 4c under 
eircoms 4G 48:1 price with their 16G 24:1 price with telephony which UTV 
forces). If your over 16G and your not a business life is tough! Of 
course if you use your phone a lot for voice calls, you have to go and 
examine their call prices so it just gets uglier!

Why oh why did I just write all this! Hope someone finds it interesting 
or informative!

Niall

p.s. all prices include VAT I hope!